Can we seriously expect a sense of balance and harmony from a film that throws into the mix Nosferatu, Marcuse, Godard, the Marquis De Sade, Freud, advertising, a condom factory, hippies, LSD, the foggy landscapes of the Langhe, an irresistible Adolfo Celi, and much more besides? It would be unwise. …hanno cambiato faccia is the product of a possibly unrepeatable era that welcomed scatter-brained auteurs and transformed a sense of confusion into a way of interpreting the world. Watching such a film today is like stepping into a deliberately defective time machine. Corrado Farina displays no qualms about grabbing classics (Bram Stoker and Murnau) by the scruff of the neck in order to construct a giant metaphor for the consumerism, capitalism and techno-fetishism of the period (and perhaps also our own), alternating between tortuous reflections, brief detours into the grotesque, and flashes of mocking comedy. The meeting between the updated Jonathan Harker and the tie-wearing entrepreneur Giovanni Nosferatu (a product of shadowy powers) becomes a sort of funereal lament for the end of ’68, without shedding too many tears in the process. In a world that has lost its way, things occur that are, to put it mildly, rather strange. For example, running out of petrol in a quiet and remote mountain village and coming face-to-face with a bare-breasted hitchhiker who appears out of nowhere. Or dodging a horde of implacable custodians intent on running over unwelcome guests with the wheels of their white Fiat 500. Or turning on the shower and finding yourself bombarded by probably fraudulent adverts from speakers hidden in the walls. And what can one say about a golf match in the decaying gardens of Nosferatu’s villa? …hanno cambiato faccia displays a healthy propensity for the unexpected. You often get the feeling you are in the wrong place. This sense of disorientation is precisely the point. Corrado Farina was already very active making “carosello” adverts and short documentaries. A few years after this, his debut film, he managed to complete a second feature, the troubled Baba Yaga, another extravagant, polymorphous excursion into fake horror with ragged edges. It would be his final film, and that is a shame.

Andrea Meneghelli